According to Loren Seibold, even seemingly mundane behaviors, [(jb) can we say habits? YES!] have huge spiritual consequences.
Note: (JB) It seems it's fashionable, these days, to call any habit, a disease, that can be treated by men and money, right? Well dear reader, can YOU tell me of anyone that voluntarily exposed themselves in order to catch a transmitted disease? However do humans willingly drink an alcoholic beverage, or take that first use of tobacco, or that first hit of illicit drugs or as they call it today "MEDICINE" grass-weed, joint?
Note: Please let's be honest here OK? Most, but not all , who use weed, just want to get high, to use it as a mind-altering drug! The most common excuse? Well everyone uses it, even Md's and lawyers! OK, so If man y people run of a pier in shark infested waters, would that be a reason to join the crowd? Please let's not all be as--- "Chicken Little" alright!
We have no choice in our receiving a disease, unlike ALL our habits! Now to the story!
NOT FAR---
From the North Dakota farm where I grew up was a barely-there town: a couple of grain elevators, a Post Office, a bar, and a general store. The store was a brick box, containing creaky floors, old and poorly stocked shelves, a few spotty fruits and vegetables, and a single dairy case. Nonetheless, I liked it, because it had a long counter of candy in front of the cash register, and Mother would let me pick out one dusty item to eat on the way home. Like many old stores of that era, the storekeeper's office consisted of a balcony along the back of the store, from which he could look down over his or her domain.
The storekeeper was Earl Smith, a grumpy old cadaver of a man, tall and gaunt, his face a semitransparent membrane of wrinkled parchment over his skull. He never stopped smoking. A camel hung from his lips as he cut your bread or meat, and he made the change and packaged your grocery bags, puffs of smoke would expel into your face.
My family strictly apposed smoking, not just because it was not healthy, nor hygienic, but it was interpreted what I heard my parents say, it was "a sin."
I was but four years old when I decided to reach out to Mr. Smith about his vice. As my Mother shopped, I mounted the steps up to the balcony where he was sitting at his desk going through receipts, a glowing but hanging as ever from the corner of his mouth, I helpfully, but pointedly, informed him that if smoked cigarettes he was going to get sick and die. And when he did , I was quit sure he wouldn't get into heaven, because I happened to know that Jesus hates cigarettes.
Mr. Smith shouted down to my mother, "Hey, come and get your brat." As my Mom collected me he growled at her that what he smoked was none of any one's business but his, and she should shut her child up.
My Mother, embarrassed, but when she told my father about it later, it sounded as though she was a little proud too.
THE EVOLUTION OF AN ADDICTION.
Tobacco is mostly an American story. Columbus's crew saw Native Americans inhaling smoke created by the burning of a large-leafed plant, which seemed to leave them in a state of relaxation, Tobacco-- NICOTIANA TABACUM-- was only used ritually by most Native Americans, for religious or treaty ceremonies and, occasionally, as an ingredient in herbal medicines. It remained for the European importers (Sir Walter Raleigh is generally given credit for popularizing it in Europe) to turn tobacco into a recreational drug. The southeastern part of North America {note species have been developed to grow as far north in Pontipool,Ontario Canada JB) was ideal for its cultivation, and tobacco soon became a major American export, which required slaves to work the plantations!
NOTE: (JB) Tobacco's addiction helped provide the need for slave labor, thus the slave trade, then cotton increased this horrific treatment of human beings! But today we have "SLAVES"--- to addictions of many intoxicating plants and chemical both legal and illicit types of drugs!
Not everyone welcomed tobacco, King James I of England ( Yes, the sponsor of the King James Bible) wrote a treatise opposing it, calling it a "Custome loathsome to the eye, hateful to the Nose, harmfull to the braine, dangerous to the lings, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." Still, it was defended by the physicians of the day who declared it health-improving. Health was an argument used well into the 20th century, when popular magazine advertisements featured cigarette recommendations by celebrity doctors.
Tobacco turned out to be a difficult foe to oppose. It provided jobs and brought prosperity to the American south. In the mid-nineteenth century, one-third of American Federal taxes came from tobacco, and other governments , around the world taxed it similarly. It was still believed to he healthful by some, and innocuous by most. Cigarettes protruded from the lips of beautiful and handsome celebrities in magazines, movies, and television programs, and became to be regarded as a mark of sophistication! [(JB) only Satan could have pulled that one of on the people!]
Most important---though this was denied by the tobacco marketers--- nicotine, the active alkaloid in tobacco is highly addictive.--------
NOTE: Nicotine, just enough to fit on the head of a straight pin, used by dressmakers, is more than enough to kill an animal the size of a rabbit or same sized dog! I WAS a smoker for 40+ years, a pack a day habit, until I read---
1 Corinthians 6:19 "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?"
----- on my knees I went, after I got rid of all the cigarette paraphernalia, and threw it all way, I then asked God's help in removing this habit from within me. It was three weeks later when I walked in a parking lot, and smelled others smell as i used to, STINK! Thank God, for removing this silly and now very expensive habit. When I began at 15 it cost 25 cents in a machine and now its near $6.00 a pack? Almost all is taxes!
------- Nicotine, the active alkaloid in tobacco, is highly addictive. Smokers found it difficult to stop smoking, even when they wanted to. [ JB, I had no problem quitting when I was a smoker, I could quit even several times each day!]
Tobacco's early opposition came from Christians, church leaders argued that such an addictive habit was incompatible with a life dedicated to God. Seventh-day Adventists author Ellen White condemned it as early as 1848, and by 1861 her colleague J.N. Loughborough would write, "We do not take [into our church] any who uses tobacco... To take in those who are holding on to their sins and wrongs would be to encourage the things we are seeking to remedy."
Note: if we call our church a hospital for the Spiritually sick, how can we deny anyone's entry? Is it not the Job of the Holy Spirit to convict them to better habits? Who are we to Judge, and is that not Christ's job?
Many religious leaders took up the crusade. The Evangelist Billy Sunday became particularly vociferous opponent of smoking.
Note: if we call our church a hospital for the Spiritually sick, how can we deny anyone's entry? Is it not the Job of the Holy Spirit to convict them to better habits? Who are we to Judge, and is that not Christ's job?
Many religious leaders took up the crusade. The Evangelist Billy Sunday became particularly vociferous opponent of smoking.
Although doctors in many part of the world saw an increase of disease in smokers, political pressure blocked serious research. {(JB) it's old case of follow the money, Honey! It talks, everything else, walks! ] A report by the U.S . Surgeon General in 1964 tentatively (and against very strong opposition by the tobacco industry) for the suggested link between smoking and disease, but this theory wasn't allowed to be confirmed for another 20 years. "BIG TOBACCO" as its opponents called it, was ruthless in its promotion, even advertising to children using cartoon characters. The watershed moment for many consumers came in 1994 when, before a congressional subcommittee in the House of representatives, seven tobacco industry executives perjured themselves under oath, stating unequivocally what every tobacco user {should... JB) have known to be a lie: that tobacco was not addictive!
NOTE: If you reject or have not ever know God, YOUR CREATOR, then following the rules of A.A.A. will be of help, but as noted God can remove any and all addiction, if you but ask in faith knowing that He'll honor your request! WHY? He loved YOU so--much--that He willingly died for YOUR SINS, so YOU won't; have to die WITH your sins! He even removed my unconscious, reaching into my shirt pocket for an other "fix"! ONLY GOD CAN DO SO!
FAITH AND TOBACCO.
DESPITE DECADES OF DENIAL, THERE IS NOW NO DOUBT THAT TOBACCO DESTROYS HEALTH not only of the users, but those within the proximity of the smoke, those ones we love, family members, and including our pets! All are open to cancer's attacks!
Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
NOTE: What Price you might have asked? Well surely most know all the trails that Jesus suffered, the whipe, with 9 strands, each with steel blades and sharped pieces of bone, that ripped flesh from bone, on His back and belly! Then for good measure was nailed to an X style cross, where it took six hours to die! Now IF THIS WAS YOUR CHILD, and you can see this in real time, I ask YOU what's the PRICE?
Inasmuch as each person's "SELF," is housed in a biological Brain, that's dependent upon a healthy biological body, there seems to be no justification, to do anything that would make either brain or body less serviceable to God, or even to self!-----agree?
Ecclesiastes 7:17 "Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time? "
1 Corinthians 10:31 " Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."
These passages then clearly show, that this topic goes far beyond the mere good health, to become a total Spiritual Issue! Can a Christian whose life is dedicated to God, be enslaved to a conscience altering drug? Though tobacco was not known to the Bible writers, they quite familiar with another drug: alcohol. The Bible unequivocally condemns drunkenness....
:
Proverbs 20:1 "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."
Proverbs 20:1 "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."
Look where Paul places drunks----
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."
No, nicotine is not as fast acting, as alcohol, but we have been given a comparison in---
Ephesians 5:18 "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;"
The implication here is simple, we can't serve two masters, but the ONE to who we obey, we serve! No matter the what, or the whom, IF our life contradicts God's ways for us, we serve another god, "Bacus?'
Matthew 6:24 "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
Galatians 5:22-25 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."
Fortunately, a addiction can be overcome, with God. He will not tempt you.....
1 Corinthians 10:13 "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
WHY, let a selfish habit destroy, family, friends, jobs, in addition to having IT.... stand between YOU and the full EXPERIENCE of knowing God's love?
Thanking YOU for your time. Questions? Comments? John at servant@frontier.com
Want?need More? Visit your Seventh-day Adventist Church any Saturday/Sabbath at 9-10 AM. Learn just much God loves you!
Other sites: aftv.org; blbn.org; amazingdiscoveries.org; servantsite@wordpress.com
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